Heroes of the Storm PTR Patch Notes — May 9, 2016

Our next major Heroes of the Storm patch has just arrived to the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until May 16. During this time, we kindly request your assistance in trying out some of the new content and balance changes it contains before we officially release the patch to the live version of Heroes. Just like last time, if you encounter any bugs or other issues during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experiences.

New Hero: Chromie

Chromie, Keeper of Time, has been added to Heroes of the Storm and is now available for play! Read on for a brief overview of her Abilities.

Trait

Timewalker

You’ve traveled into the future, and as such, will learn your Talents 1 level earlier than your teammates.

Basic Abilities

Sand Blast (Q)

After 1 second, fire a long-range blast that damages the first enemy Hero it hits.

Dragon’s Breath (W)

Fire a blast into the air that lands after 1.5 seconds, dealing damage to enemies in an area. Enemies cannot see where the blast will land.

Time Trap (E)

Place a Time Trap that arms and Stealths after 2 seconds. The first enemy Hero to touch it will be placed into Stasis for 2 seconds. Only 1 Trap can exist at once.

Heroic Abilities

Slowing Sands (R)

Create a swirling vortex of sand which greatly slows enemies caught within its area of effect. The longer Slowing Sands is active, the greater its slow becomes.

Temporal Loop (R)

Target enemy Hero will be teleported 3 seconds back in time to the position they were in when you initially cast Temporal Loop.

System Changes

Hero League Matchmaking

The top few hundred players in the world have extremely high matchmaking ratings (MMR), and the MMR gap between these players and the general population can be dramatic. At times, only a few of these extremely talented players are in the queue waiting for a match. In these cases, a highly-skilled player could previously be matched with several of the best available allies in queue, along with one lower-rated player in order to help balance out the team’s average MMR and find a match more quickly.

A new change has been implemented with today’s patch in which the matchmaking system will prefer to create a game that’s a little less even, using the highest-rated players available, rather than create an even game that includes lesser-skilled players.

In the overwhelming majority of the games it creates, the matchmaking system prefers very even matches. However, in cases like those described above, the matchmaking system will prefer to create games where the high-level player has a slight advantage, but all players are closer in skill, rather than set up a match where the high-level player has to work harder to “carry” a lesser-skilled teammate. In essence, today’s change will help to maintain the overall fairness and integrity of the league over the fairness of that specific match. Additionally, this should only occur after a relatively lengthy wait in the Hero League queue.

Art

General

The Specialist role icon has received updated artwork to better reflect Specialists as masters of unconventional warfare.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

Many Heroes have received updated Ability and Talent button art.

The Dragon Knight and Garden Terror have received updated Ability button art.

A new visual overlay has been added to better indicate when the player is affected by Stasis.

Ice Block (Talent)

Cho — Molten Block (Talent)

Chromie — Time Trap (E), Time Out (Talent)

Jaina — Improved Ice Block (Talent)

Rexxar — Feign Death (Talent)

Zagara — Devouring Maw (R)

Zeratul — Void Prison (R)

Arthas

Arthas has received updated visual effects to coincide with his Talent rework.

Visual effects for Arthas’ Rune Tap Talent will now display closer to the center of his model rather than appear overhead.

Shop

Bundles

New Bundles have been added, and will remain available for purchase until Tuesday, May 10!

Fel Queen Chromie Bundle

Battle Beasts Bundle

Ultimate Battle Beasts Bundle

Triumph Bundle

The Storm Bundle has been removed from the in-game Shop.

New Hero

Chromie has been added to the in-game Shop.

Skins

Master Chromie

Fel Queen Chromie

Price Reductions

Nazeebo’s prices have been reduced to $6.49 USD and 4,000 Gold.

Nova’s prices have been reduced to $8.49 USD and 7,000 Gold.

Sound

Questing Talents

New sound effects have been added that will play when making progress with a Questing Talent.

User Interface

Draft Mode

Hero Bans

The first round Ban timer has been increased from 45 to 60 seconds.

In-Game UI

Questing Talents

Questing Talents have received visual polish that should help players better distinguish them from other Talents, and more easily track progress toward quest completion.

Questing Talent progress will now be more clearly indicated in Ability tooltips, Talent tooltips, and on the Buff bar.

Questing Talent icons on the in-game Score Screen (TAB) will now display progress toward completion for all players in a game.

A Quest icon will briefly appear and float next to the Hero or the Hero’s target when making progress toward an unfinished Questing Talent.

Visual effects will briefly appear around a Hero when they complete a Questing Talent.

Ability Buttons

Ability button borders will now be greyed out borders when the associated Ability cannot be used.

Floating Combat Text

Many additional Hero Abilities have received the new critical strike floating combat text style to better inform players when critical strikes are triggered from Ability and Talent effects.

Hero Select

Role description tooltips have been added to Role sorting buttons on Hero Select.

Queue Time Estimates

A “High Estimated Wait Time” notification will now display above the Ready button during times when the selected Hero is a very popular choice in matchmaking queues.

This will most often occur on days when a new Hero is released.

This notification will prompt players to try another Hero while wait times are very high, but will not prevent them from queuing with the high-traffic Hero.

Battlegrounds

Healing Well

25% of a Healing Well’s maximum Health has been converted into a Shield. Shield Regeneration delay of 8 seconds.

Developer Comments: We’ve noticed some rather un-fun behavior in the form of sniping Healing Wells over time using very long range Abilities. While we’re okay with players doing this to a degree, we found it was too effective given how little counterplay there was. To help solve this, turned a sizable portion of Healing Well Health into a Shield. This means that if you offer your Healing Well some respite from enemy attacks by chasing opponents away every now and then, it will start to regenerate some of that Shield. Only you can protect Healing Wells from those pesky Arcane Orbs!

Talents

Battle Momentum

Battle Momentum has been made Hero-specific, and now only applies to Basic Ability cooldowns.

Developer Comments: Our intention for Battle Momentum was to create more active gameplay by using your Basic Abilities more often, but we found that a lot of this Talent’s power lied in its ability to reduce your Heroic cooldowns. We wanted to increase the cooldown reduction granted by the Talent, but didn’t want Heroic Ability cooldowns to drop to absurdly low levels. By making it only reduce the cooldowns of Basic Abilities (Q, W, E), it allowed us to increase this cooldown reduction without making it overpowered. We’ve also made Battle Momentum Hero-specific, so that we can tune each one without affecting all the rest, since Attack Speed, melee versus range, and the nature of your Basic Abilities can all drastically change what is balanced.

Conjurer’s Pursuit

A reward has been added to this Questing Talent.

Quest: Gather Regeneration Globes to permanently increase Mana Regeneration by 0.10 per second, up to a maximum of 2.5 per second.

Developer Comments: We’ve added a completion point to this Talent. Upon completing its quest, players will be provided with some additional power. This allows us to offer spikes of power in-between Talent levels, or even for a single player on a team. Now, simply picking the Talent and only partially completing it is worse, but finishing the quest will return a larger reward. Choosing the right Talents on the right Battleground or with the right team composition has always been an important goal for us, and this change pushes this Talent to closer align with that goal.

Executioner

This Talent has been reworked.

Increases Basic Attack damage by 30% for 3 seconds after hitting a Stunned, Slowed, or Rooted target with a Basic Attack. Using Basic Attacks against a Slowed, Rooted, or Stunned target during this time will refresh the buff duration.

Developer Comments: We like the punishing nature of Executioner, but have found over time that its benefit to the player is too narrowly scoped. We’re changing the Talent to be more consistently useful by giving the player a temporary Attack Damage buff that procs when they first hit a crowd controlled target.

Hardened Focus

The Health bar next to the Hero Portrait will now display a marker that indicates whether the Hero is above or below 80% Health.

Will now display an icon in the Buff bar next to the Hero Portrait while its effects are active.

Regeneration Master

A reward has been added to this Questing Talent.

Quest: Regeneration Globes now grant 1.0 Health per second, stacking up to 30

Falstad

Health restored per Basic Attack increased from 15% to 20% of damage dealt to the primary target.

Tailwind (Trait)

Flow Rider (Talent) moved from Level 4 to Level 13.

Hammerang (Q)

Power Throw (Talent) removed.

Hammer Time (Talent) removed.

Crippling Hammer (Talent) moved from Level 13 to Level 16.

Secret Weapon (Talent)

Now also increases Hammerang range by 30%.

Basic Attack damage bonus reduced from 80% to 60%

Lightning Rod (W)

Charged Up (Talent) moved from Level 4 to Level 7.

Now also increases Lightning Rod’s range by 15%.

Number of bonus strikes reduced from 3 to 2.

Static Shield (Talent) moved from Level 13 to Level 4.

Shield amount per strike reduced from 5% to 4% of maximum Health.

Barrel Roll (E)

Shield duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds.

Free Roll (Talent) removed.

Updraft (Talent) moved from Level 1 to Level 4.

Now also increases Barrel Roll’s Shield amount by 40%.

Developer Comments: We have been trying our best to support and balance the ‘mage’ versus ‘auto-attack’ builds that Falstad has access to, but continue to teeter-totter as small changes to popular Talents tend to dictate full build-paths. The changes Falstad is receiving may seem massive (and to an extent they are), but we tried our best to keep his current builds intact while opening some new and exciting combinations. Overall, we are not hoping for a huge swing in power in one direction or the other, but to open up more compelling choices at each Talent tier.

Kerrigan

Summon Ultralisk (R)

Cooldown reduced from 80 to 70 seconds.

Maelstrom (R)

Cooldown reduced from 100 to 90 seconds.

Developer Comments: We are hearing your feedback about Kerrigan. Although the changes this patch are very minor, we are full aware of the community’s support and enthusiasm for revitalizing the Queen of Blades. Although we don’t currently have any extensive changes planned for her, she is definitely on our radar and you can expect to see some more tweaks coming soon™.

Li-Ming

Cannoneer (Talent)

Cannoneer stacks will now be displayed in the Buff bar next to the Hero Portrait.

Tal Rasha’s Elements (Talent) has been reworked, and now reads as follows:

Using Abilities grants 5% Ability Power to a maximum of 20%. This bonus is reset when the same Ability is used within a chain.

Disintegrate (R)

Temporal Flux (Talent)

Now gradually Slows enemies caught in its beam, up to maximum of 60%.

Developer Comments: After our last round of changes, Li-Ming’s win rate and overall balance has leveled into a great spot. However, we felt that there were a couple of changes to her level 20 Talents that would help them better fit her intended design goals. Both Tal Rasha’s Elements and Disintegrate will now take a bit more planning and finesse to execute to their max potential.

Developer Comments: While one of the core components of Li Li’s design has been that she does not target her Abilities, we were not happy with Herbal Cleanse and its odd usability. In addition to some other minor Talent adjustments, we’ve decided to give Cleanse to Li Li to help her compete with other Supports in this area.

Lt. Morales

Advanced Block (Talent) renamed to Automated Block.

Malfurion

Tranquility (R)

Will no longer Heal non-Heroic units.

Rehgar

Lightning Shield (W)

Stormcaller (Talent) has been reworked.

Now restores 3 Mana when Lightning Shield damages an enemy Hero, up to a maximum of 30.

Earthbind Totem (E)

Earthgrasp Totem (Talent)

Empowered Slow duration reduced from 1.5 to 1 second.

Developer Comments: Stormcaller has been changed so that it offers a little different gameplay than Spiritwalker’s Grace. While they both restore Mana, Stormcaller will offer a higher reward but not have the same guarantee as Spiritwalker’s Grace. Each also has different synergies with other Talents. Earthgrasp Totem’s slow duration was nerfed slightly because we found the duration of such a powerful slow on a short cooldown was pretty frustrating to play against.

Warrior

Anub’arak

Health increased from 1926 (+4% per level) to 2026 (+4% per level)

Health Regeneration increased from 4.01 (+4% per level) to 4.22 (+4% per level) Health per second

Dampen Magic (Talent) added at Level 1.

Mercenary Lord (Talent) removed.

Spell Shield (Talent) removed.

Imposing Presence (Talent) removed.

Locust Needles (Talent)

Area damage increased from 50% to 60% of Basic Attack damage.

Scarab Host (Trait)

Assault Scarab (Talent)

Beetle Basic Attack damage bonus increased from 25% to 30%.

Beetle, Juiced (Talent)

This Talent’s functionality has changed, and now reads as follows:

Every third Basic Attack against enemy Heroes spawns a Beetle.

Impale (Q)

Bed of Barbs (Talent) moved from Level 7 to Level 13.

Damage increased from 26 (+4% per level) to 46 (+4% per level) per second.

Extended Spikes (Talent)

Now also increases Impale damage by 25%.

Harden Carapace (W)

Shield amount increased from 260 (+4% per level) to 300 (+4% per level)

Cooldown decreased from 8 to 7 seconds

Mana cost decreased from 35 to 30

Persistent Carapace (Talent) removed.

Symbiotic Armor (Talent) removed.

Urticating Spines (Talent) moved from Level 7 to Level 13.

Area damage reduced from 105 (+4% per level) to 80 (+4% per level), and deals double damage to enemy Heroes.

Chitinous Plating (Talent) moved from Level 13 to Level 7.

This Talent’s functionality has changed, and now reads as follows:

While Hardened Carapace is active, taking damage from enemy Abilities decreases its cooldown by 0.75 seconds, up to 3 seconds maximum.

Shed Exoskeleton (Talent)

Movement Speed bonus increased from 25% to 30%.

Burrow Charge (E)

Underking (Talent)

No longer reduces the cooldown of Burrow Charge, but still increases range by 20%.

Now also increases Burrow Charge damage by 100%.

Epicenter (Talent)

No longer increases Burrow Charge damage, but still increases its impact area by 85%.

Now also decreases the cooldown of Burrow Charge by 4 seconds per enemy Hero hit.

Locust Swarm (R)

Mana cost decreased from 100 to 75

Cocoon (R)

Cryptweave (Talent)

Channeling will now occur automatically while Anub’arak remains near the Cocooned enemy.

Developer Comments: We want Anub’arak to be a Warrior who is good against enemy spell casters, so we gave him some Talents that point him in that direction. We also saw an opportunity to improve his Talent tree, as many of his Talents are outdated. He should feel much better at diving squishy backline Heroes, and his Talent choices should be more compelling.

Arthas

Health increased from 2382 (+4% per level) to 2582 (+4% per level)

Health regeneration increased from 4.96 (+4% per level) to 5.37 (+4% per level)

Regeneration Master (Talent) removed

Mercenary Lord (Talent) removed

Spell Shield (Talent) removed

Relentless (Talent) removed

Stoneskin (Talent) removed

Rewind (Talent) removed

New Talent (Level 7): Icebound Fortitude

Activate to reduce damage taken by 25% and reduce the duration of silences, stuns, slows, roots, and polymorphs by 75% for 3 seconds. 50 second cooldown.

New Talent (Level 20): Death’s Advance

Passively increases Arthas’ Movement Speed by 10%. Activate to increase this bonus to 30% for 3 seconds. 50 second cooldown.

New Talent (Level 20): Anti-Magic Shell

Activate to reduce Ability damage taken by 100% for 3 seconds, and heal for 25% of the damage prevented. 60 second cooldown.

Frostmourne Hungers (Trait) (D)

Destruction (Talent) removed.

Obliterate (Talent) removed.

Eternal Hunger (Talent) has been reworked as a Questing Talent.

Quest: Using Frostmourne Hungers on an enemy Hero permanently increases the Mana it restores by 4, up to a maximum of 40.

Reward: After hitting 10 Heroes with Frostmourne Hungers, its damage bonus is increased to 125%.

Frost Strike (Talent) moved from Level 7 to Level 13

Now also reduces the cooldown of Frostmourne Hungers by 2 seconds.

Death Coil (Q)

Death Touch (Talent) removed.

Immortal Coil (Talent) moved from Level 16 to Level 7

Casting Death Coil on an enemy Hero now restores Health equal to 100% of the damage dealt.

New Talent (Level 4): Deathlord

Reduces Death Coil’s cooldown by 2 seconds and increases its range by 25%.

Howling Blast (W)

Frost Presence (Talent)

Now reduces Howling Blast’s cooldown by 6 seconds if it hits an enemy Hero.

Trail of Frost (Talent)

Now also increases the range of Howling Blast by 30%.

Frozen Tempest (E)

Damage per second increased from 48 (+4% per level) to 52 (+4% per level)

Developer Comments: As one of the very first heroes that we created, and one who hasn’t had many changes since his release, Arthas has been on our radar for some time as a Hero whose Talents needed some sprucing up. In addition to giving him some powerful new Talents befitting of the Lich King, we also moved around and modified many of his options so that he has multiple build paths with different playstyles.

Arthas Talents

Level (Tier)

1 (1)

Block

(!) Eternal Hunger (Trait)

Frost Presence (W)

—

4 (2)

Frozen Wastes (E)

NEW: Deathlord (Q)

Biting Cold (E)

—

7 (3)

Rune Tap

Immortal Coil (Q)

NEW: Icebound Fortitude

—

10 (4)

Army of the Dead (R)

Summon Syndragosa (R)

—

—

13 (5)

Trail of Frost (W)

Frost Strike (Trait)

NEW: Frigid Winds (E)

—

16 (6)

NEW: Remorseless Winter (E)

Frostmourne Feeds (Trait)

Embrace Death (Q)

—

20 (7)

Legion of Northrend (R)

Absolute Zero (R)

NEW: Death’s Advance

NEW: Anti-Magic Shell

(!) indicates a Questing Talent.

Italic text indicates a NEW Talent.

Bold text indicates a MOVED Talent.

Diablo

Shadow Charge (Q)

The implementation for this Ability has been reworked.

No longer automatically Stuns the target at the end of the knockback phase, and instead applies a Daze for the duration of the knockback.

Targets that collide with terrain will still be stunned for 1 second.

Diablo will now continue travelling toward the enemy target for the duration of the knockback phase.

Developer Comments: Shadow Charge seems like a really simple Ability, but on the backend there were a lot of technical manipulations to make everything work the way they were intended. These were starting to create odd gameplay and bugs, so we’ve simplified the design of the Ability so that Diablo travels right alongside his victim as they are knocked back, instead of walking really fast toward them.

Johanna

Iron Skin (Trait) (D)

Shield amount increased from 613 (+4% per level) to 674 (+4% per level).

Developer Comments: We originally tuned Iron Skin to hold a large portion of the power in Johanna’s base-kit. The scaling changes we did in November hurt the strength of the Ability, so we are tuning it up in order to help bring back that original feeling.

Leoric

Reanimation (Talent) has been changed to match Regeneration Master’s new functionality.

Developer Comments: The changes to Muradin were done to help balance out his Talent tree. A few Talents were a bit over or under-tuned, and he kindly offered us his hammer in order to forge some better options.

Rexxar

Hunter-Gatherer (Talent) has been changed to match Regeneration Master’s new functionality.

Both Rexxar and Misha gain Health Regeneration bonuses up to 30 Health per second, but only Rexxar will gain the 600 Health bonus on Quest completion.

Misha, Follow! (Trait) (D)

Misha will now follow enemies to their last known location, even into bushes or vents, much like Zagara’s Hunter Killer.

Stitches

Hungry for More (Talent) has been reworked as a Questing Talent.

Quest: Collecting Regeneration Globes permanently increases maximum Health by 30, up to a maximum of 900.

Fixed an issue that could cause Abathur and Gall players to be flagged as AFK if they did not move from the starting area, despite issuing commands to their Heroes.

Casting Dehaka’s Isolation on a summoned unit or Heroic pet, such as Misha, Gargantuan, or a Holo Decoy, will no longer also cause the Hero who owns that unit to lose allied vision.

Additionally, if one of The Lost Vikings or Chen’s Storm, Earth, Fire Spirits are hit by Isolation, only the affected unit will have reduced personal vision, but the player should retain allied vision.

Alternatively, if the only living Viking or Spirit is hit by Isolation, the player will have reduced personal vision and lose allied vision for Isolation’s full duration.

Enemy Heroes hit by the outer edge of an Xplodium Charge will now properly refill Gazlowe’s Rock It! Turret charges after learning the X-Tra Large Bombs and ARK Reaktor Talents.

Johanna’s Falling Sword will now properly cancel enemy Heroic Abilities when its Stun is applied during those Abilities’ casting times.

Lt. Morales’ Safeguard will now use the new floating combat text style, rather than the old one.

When Murky’s Pufferfish is cast in a Bush or Vent, its explosion radius will now briefly appear to enemies with its area of effect before the Pufferfish explodes.

Murky’s Egg will no longer be destroyed if Murky is Stuck by Tracer’s Pulse Bomb, but killed before the Pulse Bomb explodes.

Fixed an issue that could cancel Nova’s Triple Tap when attempting to cast it on an enemy Nova who is already channeling Triple Tap on a different target.

Fixed an issue that caused Nova’s Holo Decoys to deal more damage than intended after learning the Anti-Armor Shells Talent.

Enemies will now be able to more easily distinguish Nova’s Holo Decoys from the real Nova when the Decoys are revealed.

Attempting to cast Nova’s Pinning Shot or Tyrande’s Hunter’s Mark on an enemy just as the target enters a Bush or Vent will no longer cause the Ability’s sound effects and animations to play as though it were successfully cast.

Casting Teleport just as Tyrael’s Judgment is about to hit Li-Ming will no longer cause her to slide a long distance.

Fixed an issue that could occasionally cause Sonya to stutter and fail to issue a Basic Attack.

Angelic Flash will no longer allow Tyrael to teleport out of Root effects.

Tyrael’s Status bar will no longer persist on-screen during Archangel’s Wrath if he is killed by Zagara’s Devouring Maw.

Holy Radiance will no longer return Mana or have its cooldown reduced when cast on non-Heroic units after learning the Wave of Light Talent.

Fixed an issue that caused the Hardened Focus Talent to reduce cooldowns for Uther’s Holy Light and Holy Shock more quickly than intended.

Fixed an issue that prevented Uther’s Holy Shock from revealing the target if it was cast just as they entered a Bush or Vent.

Right-clicking an enemy Structure while channeling Zagara’s Baneling Barrage will no longer cause her to move to that Structure without attacking it.

Zeratul’s Wormhole Talent will no longer allow him to Blink out of Root effects.

User Interface

Resolved an issue that could cause players to become disconnected from draft lobbies when rapidly clicking among Hero Skin Variations.

A.I. difficulty preferences will no longer be reset to Adept after restarting the game client.

Mount preferences will now be properly saved across Hero League and Custom Game draft lobbies.

Queuing as the Auto-Select Hero will no longer grant players access to Skin and Mount Variations they do not own in the next game.

Fixed an issue that prevented the Trait hotkey (Default: “D”) from being rebound to the “F” key.

Parties searching for a match will now be properly removed from the matchmaking queue if the leader leaves the party or cancels searching.